PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you all very much for that warm welcome.
It's an honor to be here in Prague, home to so much of Europe's history
and culture, and the scene of so much courage in the service of
freedom. After the recent floods, I know it's been tough on the
citizens of the Czech Republic to not only recover, but to host this
important gathering. So, on behalf of all the American delegation and
all the Americans who are here, I express our gratitude for the
fantastic hospitality we received. We thank the Czech people and their
leadership for working hard to make sure this summit is a successful
summit, and we wish them all the very best.

I want to thank Jimmy for his kind words. Really proud of Jimmy
and we're proud to have him at West Point. He's a credit to the
Academy, he's a credit to the people of Lithuania. And we wish him all
the very best.

I want to thank Alan Lee Williams, Antonio Bores Cavallo, for the
tremendous work at the Atlantic Treaty Association. I'm grateful to
Christopher Makins, who's the President of the Atlantic Council of the
United States, for organizing this event. I want to thank Tom Dine,
President of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, for joining us. I
want to thank all the good folks who work there for joining us, as
well. I appreciate your service.

Dwight Eisenhower said this of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty
-- "The simplest and clearest charter in the world is what you have,
which is to tell the truth." And for more than 50 years, the charter
has been faithfully executed, and it's the truth that sets this
continent free.

I'm honored to be traveling with members of my senior staff. The
Secretary of State of the United States Colin Powell, who's done such a
fantastic job for our country and for world peace. Condoleezza Rice,
who's my National Security Advisor, is here; Chief of Staff Andy Card;
Ambassador Nick Burns to NATO. A few others who I don't particularly
want to recognize for fear of damaging my reputation. (Laughter.) But
all of them doing a great job. Thank you all for coming.

I also want to recognize members of the Congress who are here. I'm
thrilled to see members of the Senate. I thought you were voting.
(Laughter.) But Senators Frist and Voinovich and their wives are with
us. I see Lantos -- yes -- good to see you from California. Who
else? That's it. Two members of the House, two members of the
Senate. Thank you all for coming. I'm honored you're here.

This NATO summit that convenes tomorrow will be the first ever held
at the capital of a Warsaw Pact. The days of the Warsaw Pact seem
distant -- they must seem to you; after all, the Warsaw Pact ended a
half a lifetime ago for you. It was a dark and distant era. The years
since have brought great challenge and great hope to all of the
countries on this continent. And tomorrow in Prague we will have
reached a decisive moment, and historic moment. For, tomorrow, we will
invite new members into our alliance. It's a bold decision -- to
guarantee the freedom of millions of people.

At the summit, we'll make the most significant reforms in NATO
since 1949 -- reforms which will allow our Alliance to effectively
confront new dangers. And in the years to come, all of the nations of
Europe will determine their place in world events. They will take up
global responsibilities, or choose to live in isolation from the
challenges of our time.

As for America, we made our choice. We are committed to work
toward world peace, and we're committed to a close and permanent
partnership with the nations of Europe. The Atlantic Alliance is
America's most important global relationship. We're tied to Europe by
history; we are tied to Europe by the wars of liberty we have fought
and won together. We're joined by broad ties of trade. And America is
bound to Europe by the deepest convictions of our common culture -- our
belief in the dignity of every life, and our belief in the power of
conscience to move history.

And this city and town squares across the Czech Republic are
monuments to Jan Hus who said this: "Stand in the truth you have
learned, for it conquers all and is mighty to eternity." That ideal
has given life to the Czech Republic, and it is shared by the republic
I lead.

America believes that a strong, confident Europe is good for the
world. We welcome the economic integration of Europe. We believe that
integration will extend prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic. We
welcome a democratic Russia as part of this new Europe, because a free
and peaceful Europe will add to the security of this continent. We
welcome the growing unity of Europe in commerce and currency and
military cooperation, which is closing a long history of rivalry and
violence. This continent, wounded by Nazism and communism, is becoming
peaceful and secure and democratic for the first time. And now that
the countries of Europe are united in freedom they will no longer fight
each other and bring war to the rest of the world.

Because America supports a more united Europe, we strongly support
the enlargement of NATO, now and in the future. Every European
democracy that seeks NATO membership and is ready to share in NATO's
responsibilities should be welcome in our Alliance. The enlargement of
NATO is good for all who join us. The standards for membership are
high, and they encourage the hard work of political and economic and
military reform.

And nations in the family of NATO, old or new, know this: Anyone
who would choose you for an enemy also chooses us for an enemy. Never
again in the face of aggression will you stand alone.

A larger NATO is good for Russia, as well. Later this week I will
visit St. Petersburg. I will tell my friend, Vladimir Putin, and the
Russian people that they, too, will gain from the security and
stability of nations to Russia's west. Russia does not require a
buffer zone of protection; it needs peaceful and prosperous neighbors
who are also friends. We need a strong and democratic Russia as our
friend and partner to face the next century's new challenges.

Through the NATO-Russia Council we must increase our cooperation
with Russia for the security of all of us. Expansion of NATO also
brings many advantages to the Alliance, itself. Every new member
contributes military capabilities that add to our common security. We
see this already in Afghanistan -- for forces from Romania, Bulgaria,
Estonia, Lithuania, Slovakia and others have joined with 16 NATO allies
to help defeat global terror.

And every new member of our Alliance makes a contribution of
character. Tomorrow, NATO grows larger. Tomorrow, the soul of Europe
grows stronger. Members recently added to NATO and those invited to
join bring greater clarity to purposes of our Alliance, because they
understand the lessons of the last century. Those with fresh memories
of tyranny know the value of freedom. Those who have lived through a
struggle of good against evil are never neutral between them. Czechs
and Slovaks learned through the harsh experience of 1938, that when
great democracies fail to confront danger, greater dangers follow. And
the people of the Baltics learned that aggression left unchecked by the
great democracies can rob millions of their liberty and their lives.

In Central and Eastern Europe the courage and moral vision of
prisoners and exiles and priests and playwrights caused tyrants to
fall. The spirit now sustains these nations through difficult
reforms. And this spirit is needed in the councils of a new Europe.

Our NATO Alliance faces dangers very different from those it was
formed to confront. Yet, never has our need for collective defense
been more urgent. The Soviet Union is gone, but freedom still has
enemies. We're threatened by terrorism, bred within failed states,
it's present within our own cities. We're threatened by the spread of
chemical and biological and nuclear weapons which are produced by
outlaw regimes and could be delivered either by missile or terrorist
cell. For terrorists and terrorist states, every free nation -- every
free nation -- is a potential target, including the free nations of
Europe.

We're making progress on this, the first war of the 21st century.
Today more than 90 nations are joined in a global coalition to defeat
terror. We're sharing intelligence. We're freezing the assets of
terror groups. We're pursuing the terrorists wherever they plot and
train. And we're finding them and bringing them to justice, one person
at a time.

Today the world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent
threat posed by Iraq. A dictator who has used weapons of mass
destruction on his own people must not be allowed to produce or possess
those weapons. We will not permit Saddam Hussein to blackmail and/or
terrorize nations which love freedom.

Last week Saddam Hussein accepted U.N. inspectors. We've heard
those pledges before and seen them violated time and time again. We
now call an end to that game of deception and deceit and denial.
Saddam Hussein has been given a very short time to declare completely
and truthfully his arsenal of terror. Should he again deny that this
arsenal exists, he will have entered his final stage with a lie. And
deception this time will not be tolerated. Delay and defiance will
invite the severest of consequences.

America's goal, the world's goal is more than the return of
inspectors to Iraq. Our goal is to secure the peace through the
comprehensive and verified disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction. Voluntary, or by force, that goal will be achieved.

To meet all of this century's emerging threats from terror camps in
remote regions to hidden laboratories of outlaw regimes, NATO must
develop new military capabilities. NATO forces must become better able
to fight side by side. Those forces must be more mobile and more
swiftly deployed. The allies need more special operations forces,
better precision strike capabilities, and more modern command
structures.

Few NATO members will have state-of-the-art capabilities in all of
these areas; I recognize that. But every nation should develop some.
Ours is a military alliance, and every member must make a military
contribution to that alliance. For some allies, this will require
higher defense spending. For all of us, it will require more effective
defense spending, with each nation adding the tools and technologies to
fight and win a new kind of war.

And because many threats to the NATO members come from outside of
Europe, NATO forces must be organized to operate outside of Europe.
When forces were needed quickly in Afghanistan, NATO's options were
limited. We must build new capabilities and we must strengthen our
will to use those capabilities.

The United States proposes the creation of a NATO response force
that will bring together well-equipped, highly ready air, ground and
sea forces from NATO allies -- old and new. This force will be
prepared to deploy on short notice wherever it is needed. A NATO
response force will take time to create and we should begin that effort
here in Prague.

Yet, security against new threats requires more than just new
capabilities. Free nations must accept our shared obligations to keep
the peace. The world needs the nations of this continent to be active
in the defense of freedom; not inward-looking or isolated by
indifference. Ignoring dangers or excusing aggression may temporarily
avert conflict, but they don't bring true peace.

International stability must be actively defended, and all nations
that benefit from that stability have a duty to help. In this noble
work, America and the strong democracies of Europe need each other,
each playing our full and responsible role. The good we can do
together is far greater than the good we can do apart.

Great evil is stirring in the world. Many of the young here are
coming up in a different world, different era, a different time, a
different series of threats. We face perils we've never thought about,
perils we've never seen before. But they're dangerous. They're just
as dangerous as those perils that your fathers and mothers and
grandfathers and grandmothers faced.

The hopes of all mankind depend on the courage and the unity of
great democracies. In this hour of challenge, NATO will do what it has
done before: We will stand firm against the enemies of freedom, and
we'll prevail.

The transatlantic ties of Europe and America have met every test of
history, and we intend to again. U-boats could not divide us. The
threats and stand-offs of the Cold War did not make us weary. The
commitment of my nation to Europe is found in the carefully tended
graves of young Americans who died for this continent's freedom. That
commitment is shown by the thousands in uniforms still serving here,
from the Balkans to Bavaria, still willing to make the ultimate
sacrifice for this continent's future.

For a hundred years place names of Europe have often stood for
conflict and tragedy and loss. Single words evoke sad and bitter
experience -- Verdun, Munich, Stalingrad, Dresden, Nuremberg and
Yalta. We have no power to rewrite history. We do have the power to
write a different story for our time.

When future generations look back at this moment and speak of
Prague and what we did here, that name will stand for hope. In Prague,
young democracies will gain new security; a grand Alliance will gather
a strength and find new purpose. And America and Europe will renew the
historic friendship that still keeps the peace of the world.